Where You Ought to Be
by northcaroline
Summary: When you don't know where someone fits into your life, even the smallest things have great meaning. Spoilers for 5x01!


It's hard to concentrate sometimes. They're on their first case back after his medical leave, and even though they're taking it slow, he finds he has trouble keeping up. How _can_ he, when he keeps getting distracted by visions of this woman, this _goddess_, as his wife? As the mother of his child?

"Booth!" she demands, looking at him expectantly. It is not until he shakes himself out of his confusion—"What? Sorry."—that he realizes she's got a suspect ready to be cuffed. As Booth whips out his handcuffs and moves to make the arrest, Brennan's expression goes from irritated to concerned in a split-second. After all, it hasn't been _that_ long since a similar distraction ended with Booth getting the business end of a skull saw.

He shakes it off and tries to convince her that he's _fine_, although he's not really sure that he is. Physically, _yes_. No more tumor symptoms, no more light sensitivity, even the afternoon migraines that characterized his recovery have pretty much abated. But somewhere in that in-between place, wherever he was between holding her hand in the hallway and waking up four days later, he saw what he can only describe as a _glimpse_. A glimpse of something amazing and terrifying.

Later, once backup has taken the suspect into custody and it's just the two of them in the truck, he looks at her earnestly and promises that he's okay.

She looks deep into his eyes and asks, "Are you sure? I can call Dr. Jursik—"

It's cheesy, but as he holds her eye contact, he has to struggle to respond to her, instead of picturing those _gorgeous_ blue eyes on the baby he was _convinced_ was real. "I'm fine, Bren," he says, immediately regretting his word choice. He shakes his head vigorously and amends: "I mean, I'm fine, Bones. Seriously. Just got a little distracted."

Understatement of the century.

***

When that suspect turns out to have a pretty solid alibi, it's Plan B for the team, which means further questioning of Angela's psychic-slash-the-victim's-sister. (Yeah, it's a weird one.) With Brennan in the lab and seemingly less than enthusiastic lately about tagging along in the field, Booth handles this interview by himself. It's a strange feeling, working solo. Especially when he felt so comfortable being her partner in all things.

But he's working on it. It's getting easier. He feels _Bren_ finally slipping away as he rediscovers all of the things that make _Bones_ the partner he's grown to care for. It's almost like a gift, he thinks, relearning her clueless brilliance, her awkward mannerisms, her enthusiasm for learning. It's not all bad, not being married to her.

"Your future is incredibly interesting, Agent Booth." Avalon Harmonia, the psychic, is just as intent on avoiding interrogation as she has been in their previous meetings. Luckily for Booth, he's just as intent on avoiding having his fortune told as _he_ has been for the last three days.

"Is that so?" he asks sarcastically. "Cause your future's looking pretty bleak, Avalon, if you don't start cooperating right about now."

"I'll cooperate. But you should know something first."

Booth rolls his eyes. If there's one thing he hates, it's having his time wasted. If there's another he hates, it's suspects trying to distract him. (Because ultimately, that's just wasting his time, which, in case you hadn't heard, is the _first_ thing Booth hates.)

"What?" he offers, exasperated.

"Your wife," she says, "Your wife loves you very, very much."

"I don't have a wife," he says, "Now, where were you last Tuesday night?"

"I told you, I was working. I can give you my schedule and you can call my clients. And you _do_ have a wife."

Booth scoffs, forces a laugh. "I think I'd know it if I had a wife."

"Not _now_.I'm a psychic, remember? I'm seeing it very clearly. Your wife wears a black bathrobe."

Now Booth's laugh is real. "Thanks. Very insightful. Waiting for a girl with a black bathrobe. Got it. Let's find that client list so we can find out if you're telling the truth."

She gets up and goes to her desk, pulling out a worn Filofax. "Awfully hostile for a man who wears a _ladies_ housecoat," she says, passing over the schedule. Booth is dumbfounded. It's not possible. Is it?

Avalon senses that she's struck a nerve and smirks.

Booth takes the book and moves to leave the room. "Don't lose that," Avalon says.

"Yeah," Booth says, dismissively. He wonders if they could _really_ have the same image in their minds, of Bones wrapped up in his big black bathrobe, him answering the door in her teeny tiny girly one. He wonders what _else_ Avalon has going through her head. Some of those images he'd really prefer to keep private.

Beyond _is it possible?_, Booth wonders _is it real?_ With someone now corroborating his vision, someone who claims to be able to see beyond reality, he finds himself dumbstruck at the idea that maybe his glimpse was truly that. A glimpse into his and Bones's future. Maybe not _literally_, mind you. He highly doubts the Jeffersonian would turn over their real estate on the National Mall to nightclub prospectors, but the rest of it… They could have something like that, maybe.That would be nice, to be able to have the _Bren_ life with _Bones_. More than nice. That would be…perfect.

But when he looks at Avalon, she just looks so ridiculous, so utterly insane, that he dismisses her raving as the work of a woman who knows how to read people, who feeds on insecurities and the clues of the subtlest body language. He thinks she'd probably be good on the other side of the interrogation table, if she wasn't such a basket case.

"Don't leave the District," he says, a final display of uncertain machismo.

It's the psychic who gets the last word, though. "Oh, and Agent Booth? A very early congratulations. It's a girl."

***

Brennan calls while Booth is driving home, to catch up on the case and to offer to meet him at the diner. Booth is still flustered from his meeting with Avalon, but it's easier to conceal over the phone.

"Nah, Bones, I think I'm just gonna head home. I'm exhausted."

"Oh. Okay," she says, sounding more dejected than usual. Booth thinks that might actually be a good sign, considering the distance she's placed between the two of them in recent days.

"You can come over if you want, but I gotta tell you, after having my brain poked at, I think my late nights out are pretty much over, Bones."

"I know. I just…" she trails off, her voice dropping into silence.

"Bones? You there?"

"I'm here," she affirms. "I have something for you."

"A present?" he says with a smile. "Well, now you _have _to come over."

"Meet you there?" she says, brightening.

"Yep. I'm almost home."

***

She knocks with one hand, balancing the oversized box on her hip with the other. He is surprised when he opens the door, quickly moving to help her with the parcel, fawning over its size.

"Oh my gosh, look at that! Is that for me?!"

She chuckles. "Well, hello to you, too."

He situates the package on his own hip, leaning in to give her a loud, friendly kiss on the cheek. "Hey, Bones." He smiles warmly at her, and they share a short moment before he turns his attention back to his present. "It's not very heavy," he says, bouncing the box a couple of times. "Is it an Xbox?"

"I don't know what that is," she says, dropping her purse on the table by the door.

"Okay, not an Xbox. Can I open it?"

She shakes her head at his childishness. He really is like an overgrown kid sometimes. "Sure, I just—"

He hesitates, fingers stalling just under the first flaps of paper, and looks up at her curiously. "You sure?"

"I just know you've been spending a lot of time here alone. I know you've been too tired to go out and do what we used to do…what _you_ used to do. And I thought, until you're ready to get back to normal, that you should at least be comfortable."

He smirks suspiciously, eyes twinkling in excited confusion. Off her nod of approval, he rips into the simple green and silver wrapping paper and lifts the lid off the cardboard department store box inside.

Within the box is a thick, _familiar _black bathrobe. With timid, almost frightened hands, Booth reaches into the box and removes the robe. He holds it out in front of himself, confounded. The cut of the neckline, the cuffs on the sleeves, the pocket he knows was _made_ for her discarded Kleenex—it's all the same.

Brennan notices his change in demeanor and misinterprets it as displeasure. Quietly, she says, "There's a gift receipt in the bottom of the box if you want to return it."

He tries a couple of times to start a sentence, but fails. She wouldn't believe him if he explained it. If he explained it, she'd have DC's busiest neurosurgeon making a late-night house call. So how can he verbalize the enormity of this simple gift?

"No, Bones, I…_thank you_."

Unknowingly, she's given him this unshakable _sureness_. This robe is part of his future. _She_ is part of his future. Avalon knew, and, in the in-between place, _he_ knew what is meant to be. _They_ are meant to be.

He hugs her tightly, this woman who is so much better than his mind's conjecture. She's real and solid and familiar and warm beneath his hands, and although he doesn't know the exact date, doesn't know how much longer it will take to break through, he does know, with absolute certainty, that she will one day be his wife.

And _that_ is the greatest gift he's ever been given.

He pulls back from the hug to find her eyes watery, and she wipes at them furiously, embarrassed. His own laugh is watery and he reaches down to squeeze her hand reassuringly. (He has a pretty much unfettered capacity for reassurance now, now that he's been assured of everything.) As he meets her eyes again, this time with contented smiles, he knows he'll get to see her sparkly blue eyes on their child—a daughter, he hears. Yes, now he knows.

He just has to wait.


End file.
